科學奧祕:這種人就是會討價還價

Everyone knows someone who bargains extraordinarily well. According to a new study in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, skilled negotiators are using extra brainpower to do so.

每個人都認識那些特會討價還價的人。美國國家科學學會一項最新研究表明，善於洽談的人所需使用的腦力比一般人更多。

Researchers created a game in which players were given the true value of an object on a scale of 1 to 10. The players used this information to make a bid to the seller of the object, who did not know the true value.

研究人員設計了一個遊戲，參與者會得到一個實際價值爲1-10區間內物品（實際價值對參與者已知），並利用這項信息向賣家出價，但遊戲的過程中，賣家不知道該物品的實際價值。

The buyers fell into three groups. One group consisted of players who were honest in their price suggestions, making low bids directly related to the true value. A second group, called “conservatives,” made bids only weakly related to the true price. The last and Most interesting group, known as “strategic deceivers,” bid higher when the true price was low, and then when the true price was high, they bid low, and collected large gains.

買者（即已知該物品價值的參與者）共有三類人。第一類人是直腸子，他們實價實買，完全按照已知的真實價值進行報價。第二類人被稱作是“保守派”，他們會對報價進行適當的壓價，但幅度不大。而最後一組最有趣，他們可以算是“策略騙子”，他們在價低的時候報高價，而在價高的時候又報低價，從中賺取大筆利益。

“They are making sure they even it out so they stay believable, and they make the most money because of it,” said Read Montague, a neuroscientist at the Baylor College of Medicine and one of the study’s authors.

貝勒醫學院神經科學家、該調查發起者之一的裏德·蒙塔奇說：“他們得確保把報價兩頭拉平，以保持自身的可信度，這樣一來就可以大賺一筆。”

Dr. Montague and his colleagues ran functional M.R.I.’s on the subjects as they played and found that the strategic deceivers had unique brain activity in regions connected to complex decision-making, goal maintenance and understanding another person’s belief system. Though the game was abstract, there are real-life advantages to being a strategic deceiver.

蒙塔奇博士和他的同事們對於那些“策略騙子”進行了腦部核磁共振，結果發現他們在與三大功能部分連接的大腦分區活動方式很特別，這三個功能分別是：複雜決策、目標維持和理解他人價值體系。雖然這個遊戲比較抽象，但是在現實生活中做一個“策略騙子”確實有其獨特的優勢。

“It’s used to bargain in a marketplace or in a store but also to recruit someone for a job, or to negotiate a higher salary,” Dr. Montague said.

他還說：“這種能力可以讓你在市場討價還價時更加得心應手，而且在你要招聘或者商談更高薪水時，也是好處多多。”